The soles of my feet turned black because the hip hop girlies dance in their shoes, black skid marks all over the studio floor. I arrived five minutes early for class, enough time to watch them in their last minutes of sweat, hard-core aerobics. I don't understand the monkey arms thing or the hunched-up back thing or the overstated and vulgar pelvic thrusts, but the hipping and hopping, the quick turns and level changes, the agility and speed and the blatant raw power, yeah those girlies got the boom boom goin on.
Bellydancing keeps those motions internalized, under close control. I have seen a dancer work the tiny floorspace between three tables loaded with drinks and clapping stomping people with jaw-dropping effect, her whole body electric and alive with the music, while maintaining a seemingly effortless grace. Hip hop makes no pretense for grace, it is hard and serious.
If dancing were compared to athletic sports, hip hop must be like kickboxing; bellydancing like swimming. Both take time and training, and although they can be compared in terms of physicality they cannot be compared in terms of value because each style of dance reflects each style of music. The difference falls entirely in the instrumentation, and the physical embodiment of sound must be taken in its own context. That said, I think hip hop would hurt my knees.
We took over the studio in our coins and bells jangling, stretched and warmed up, and the lesson involved a step combination with a turn and then some shimmy hip work. It is work, too, and the execution of the move depends on abdominal strength. In out in slide to the right in out in slide to the left, the body balanced and poised, moving sideways as though through two panes of glass. Funhouse mirrors with a trick exit.
I love the girls around me as we turn and turn and shimmy shimmy twist, drop the hip rise, drop the hip in a step combination too complicated to explain with words. There's Jesi and Jen, Em and M, and I watch their strong ankles feet toes as we travel triplet-step gliding on demi-point, like we're floating through the heat waves. I know our thighs all are burning and I can see the shapes of legs beneath the skirts, muscular pillars with hinges and springs, the motion of the legs terminating in the hips.
Our torsos and shoulders remain poised and lifted, unaffected by the intense motion shaking our hips and all the skin and flesh from the belly down. Remember the diamond beneath the shoulderblades, that point opposite the solar plexus, this is the torso's fulcrum, the hips can shift to any direction. The center of gravity is lower, cradled by the hips. The back is long and strong and the abdominal muscles hold the weight of the body.
We were all glistening and glowing after the hour and a half, flushed skin and smiles. Such delight, pleasure in pain.
This morning the air smelled like summer and S rode with me to work on our bicycles. It's a half-hour's ride, half through the industrial part of town and the other half along the bike path that runs on either side of the river. The air felt fresh and cool and sunlight glinted and sparkled on the cold fast river river. Lazy trees dangled their limbs in the water and I wanted to keep riding, the river on my left, heading upstream into the sun as it climbed the pale curtain of blue.
Bellydancing keeps those motions internalized, under close control. I have seen a dancer work the tiny floorspace between three tables loaded with drinks and clapping stomping people with jaw-dropping effect, her whole body electric and alive with the music, while maintaining a seemingly effortless grace. Hip hop makes no pretense for grace, it is hard and serious.
If dancing were compared to athletic sports, hip hop must be like kickboxing; bellydancing like swimming. Both take time and training, and although they can be compared in terms of physicality they cannot be compared in terms of value because each style of dance reflects each style of music. The difference falls entirely in the instrumentation, and the physical embodiment of sound must be taken in its own context. That said, I think hip hop would hurt my knees.
We took over the studio in our coins and bells jangling, stretched and warmed up, and the lesson involved a step combination with a turn and then some shimmy hip work. It is work, too, and the execution of the move depends on abdominal strength. In out in slide to the right in out in slide to the left, the body balanced and poised, moving sideways as though through two panes of glass. Funhouse mirrors with a trick exit.
I love the girls around me as we turn and turn and shimmy shimmy twist, drop the hip rise, drop the hip in a step combination too complicated to explain with words. There's Jesi and Jen, Em and M, and I watch their strong ankles feet toes as we travel triplet-step gliding on demi-point, like we're floating through the heat waves. I know our thighs all are burning and I can see the shapes of legs beneath the skirts, muscular pillars with hinges and springs, the motion of the legs terminating in the hips.
Our torsos and shoulders remain poised and lifted, unaffected by the intense motion shaking our hips and all the skin and flesh from the belly down. Remember the diamond beneath the shoulderblades, that point opposite the solar plexus, this is the torso's fulcrum, the hips can shift to any direction. The center of gravity is lower, cradled by the hips. The back is long and strong and the abdominal muscles hold the weight of the body.
We were all glistening and glowing after the hour and a half, flushed skin and smiles. Such delight, pleasure in pain.
This morning the air smelled like summer and S rode with me to work on our bicycles. It's a half-hour's ride, half through the industrial part of town and the other half along the bike path that runs on either side of the river. The air felt fresh and cool and sunlight glinted and sparkled on the cold fast river river. Lazy trees dangled their limbs in the water and I wanted to keep riding, the river on my left, heading upstream into the sun as it climbed the pale curtain of blue.
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